@irk (day 54)

I'm @annoyed at all @the @$*%*( @tagging that's going @on.   Seriously I can't read people's posts without being cognitively interrupted all the time.  Is it me?  Am I just programmed to pause at an @?  Is my inner voice too loud?  What, if, I put, commas, everywhere, would, that be the, same?  Yup, seems to be.   But the @ has the additional annoyance of being visually prominent.    I have to learn to relax with the @.  Love it, view it as decoration to be skipped or acknowledged after the fact.   Part of a well written text is the fact that it disappears.  I love the lilt of a good turn of phrase.   I love the flow of a nicely timed sentence.  So far the @ destroys that for me.  This annoyance was partially triggered by the cross-posting from twitter to facebook.  In the twitter world the @ has a function that is definitely not the same in Facebook.  I think of a post on FB as being addressed to everyone, but what sometimes happens with cross-posted tweets is that certain people are named or it's obviously a response to something and it feels like it ended up on my FB feed by accident.   Like receiving an invite to a party that's not addressed to you.   It's visual and cognitive noise.

ta@

A song for this rant.

A love list (day 37)

I have a hate list.  Does everyone have a hate list?  Probably but I bet not everyone as a well developed formal hate list.  I'm somewhere in between now but in my early twenties I had this thing call the pit which had many levels.   Things and people (mostly people) would get thrown into the pit.  Some people would be given tools to dig themselves out.  Most times these were only small plastic spoons.   One person went so low into the pit that they became a mythical figure haunting the pit with the sound of their nails on the pit walls.  Some people were given bungee cords and although they were occasionally thrown into the pit, they had an automatic reprieve after a harrowing few moments.

My friend Zeenat asked me what is on my love list today.  I don't have a formal love list at all.  But I think, however sappy it may be, a love list might be a good thing to start.  First, what is the correct metaphor for a love list.   A bean stalk?  clouds?  Warm lofty winds?  Oh I know.  Food.  A layer cake.  It works because it's not just layers of cake but there's frosting and cherries and decorations and coulis.   Some people are good frosting, others are more robust cake layers.   Zeenat is definitely sparkles on the cake.  Steve is a mottled chocolate and white cake layer all his own.  My cat Tagi is little bits of almond that are sometimes welcomed and other times just incongruous.  My parents are the plate.  I know it sounds unglamourous but being a plate is the very base of the love cake.  Shannon is well-placed sour cherries.  Nathalie is refreshing slices of pear.  This cake deserves never to be eaten.

A song for this post.